


Deranged Despair

by fullfirefafar



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, me @ me: why are u like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullfirefafar/pseuds/fullfirefafar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry loved the colour of blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deranged Despair

 Henry loved the colour of blood.  
  
 However, since that wretched day, his love for such a vile colour turned to agonizing hatred and fear when the only person he loved was splashed with crimson right before his very eyes.  
  
 “WE NEED A HEALER!”  
  
  _No…_  
  
 “OH GODS A HEALER- LISSA! LIBRA! _QUICK-!_ ”  
  
  _N-No…N-N-o-_  
  
 “OH GODS OLIVIA HANG ON!!”  
  
  _-on’t lea- D-Do-n’t –ea-e m-me-_  
  
 “GET RID OF THE ENEMIES QUICK- OH GODS HENRY-!”  
  
  _-ea-e… P-Pl-e…ase-_  
  
 “HENRY WATCH OUT!”  
  
  _Please…_  
  
 “HENRY NO!”  
  
  _P…Pl-ea…s…e…_  
  
 “HENRYYYY!!!”  
  
  _Please-  
  
 “Henry…”_  
  
 As her voice echoed in his head like a lovely lullaby, he snapped his eyes wide open.  
  
 Everything happened in a single heartbeat; dull grey irises instantly swallowed by a disgusting shade of crimson; black pupils shrunk into tiny dots. White eyeballs practically shook inside the holes of their sockets, cracking blood-red nerves right across the irises’ surface.  
  
 With head dropped low before her bloodied body, he swung his left arm around.  
  
  _KACHAUW!_  
  
 Before anyone could make do of the situation, violent sparks of electricity swiftly burst right out of his fingertips.  
  
  _SPLAT!_  
  
 And before any bandit could avoid the inevitable, those sharp, piercing thunderbolts punctured through their hearts and chest, hollowing out huge holes and throwing off the torn chunks right at another.  
  
 Blood and flesh rained from the decimated bodies. As the bandits dropped with roaring sounds of _thud_ and their weapons clashed to the ground with bloody echoes of _clang_ , silence then became the atmosphere’s eulogy. Although some still had their positions to an offence with weapons raised in the air, all eyes fell on the quiet dark mage. Although some now gaped in pure horror, a few shrills of strained gasps still echoed about at the sight of the mess.  
  
 Henry remained kneeling on the ground. Left arm stretched to the side while right curled to a fist in front of the motionless body, he began to shiver. More and more the frail body trembled, every inch of his skin prickled terribly as if a bloodthirsty cold had seeped into his bones. In and out his breathing went, flow uneven and rough as it rasped through clenched teeth. Faster and faster his heart drummed, roughly scraping through his ribcage as if it tried to force its freedom.  
  
 “-ow…d-re…”  
  
 A voice then peeped through the choking silence.  
  
 “H-H-ow…-a-re…”  
  
 That tiny voice felt like countless needles piercing not only into the enemies’, but into the Shepherds’ hearts as well.  
  
 “How dare…How dare…”  
  
 Again and again that single sentence chanted out.  
  
 “How dare…”  
  
 Again and again it echoed as his eyes lay on the still body.  
  
 “H-H-How-”  
  
 Suddenly Henry got up to his feet, startling everyone around the perimeter.  
  
 “-fucking-”  
  
 With a single spin of his heel, the dark mage faced the swarm of bandits. And when he did, oh Gods help them, for all they could see was a pair of tiny dots quivering right in the middle of bloodstained irises.  
  
 “-DAAAAA _AAHAHAHAHAH!!!_ ”  
  
 As his cackle shrilled right toward the bright blue sky, Henry threw away his Arcthunder tome. In a blink of an eye, another tome appeared right into the palm of his right hand. Though unlike all the other tomes they had seen, this would be described as literally cursed by a single glance. The book’s cover was a hard, rotten colour of black. Darker, thicker smoke coated and whirled around the tome, puffing out a nauseating scent that could rip out the flesh of a person’s stomach. As the dark mage flipped open the spell book, a gush of smoke and soot puffed out, forming a few tiny clouds that hovered right across his face.  
  
 Gone were the smiles that he usually wore, replaced with a snarl that hungered for flesh and blood. Gone were the laughs that he usually burst, replaced with a growl that gargled violently inside his throat.  
  
 His mouth then began to recite the incantation.  
  
 And once he did, while everyone only gaped and quivered in sheer shock, fear, and bafflement, only one choked out a gasp at the consequences that was about to happen.  
  
—  
  
 “Oh no…”  
  
 Libra quickly turned once he heard such fear in her voice. “Tharja?”  
  
 The sorceress herself didn’t respond, nor did she even turn at his glance. “No no no-” Again and again she muttered, head slowly shaking, then harshly whipping up a rapid pace. For once, an expression finally broke out, flashing pure fear around the corners of her gaping mouth, glistening straight inside her widened eyes. One foot slid backwards when she saw black flames sparked on Henry’s fingers. The other foot then slid faster when she saw his body being shrouded by abysmal smoke.  
  
 The more she looked at him, the more she heard him, Tharja knew: if she didn’t do something, everyone else – her, Robin, Libra, everyone – would die a gruesomely horrifying death.  
  
 While she was caught in her own delusional fright, Libra only felt more and more worried at her current state, if not utterly terrified at the entire situation. Eyes switched between his wife and the manic dark mage, he quickly reached out for her. “Love, what’s wrong?”  
  
 “Henry you _IDIOT!_ ”  
  
 Now stunned by her own screams, Libra flinched back once he saw Tharja raise her arms. “Tharja what’re you-?!”  
  
 Words and concern burned to a silent squeak when he felt his feet no longer touched the ground.  
  
 In an instant Libra looked down, only to gasp out loud at the fact that he was levitating a few feet off the ground. Quickly he turned to Tharja who, just like him and all the other Shepherds, was floating in midair like a couple of balloons. “Tharja- W-Whoah!” His body tipped to the side, arms waving up and down until his steel axe slipped from quivering grasp and crashed to a ground. “Love, what’s going-?!”  
  
 Before his bewilderment could even be finished as a proper question, Libra instead froze in one place to hear a scream that he had temporarily forgotten.  
  
—  
  
 The second Tharja’s spell had all the Shepherds – except Henry – floating off the ground, he had crouched down with one knee and slammed his left palm to the soft, crumbling soil.  
  
 Although silence lingered despicably despite his actions, all eyes then focused on a sea of black flames sprouting and whirring from underneath the grounds. Those flames slithered about like hazy eels, gliding on and under the surface toward the stunned victims. Faster and faster it zoomed, reaching for skin or flesh like a starving, maniacal predator.  
  
 That single line of fire then grasped at one of the bandit’s left foot.  
  
 And once it did, a piercing shriek basically croaked through the bandit’s wide, gaping mouth.  
  
 Because in a single heartbeat, in a blink of an eye,  
   
  _Rriip…_  
  
 The performance that was about to start was a show made by the devil.  
  
  _RRRRRRRRRIIIIPPP **CRACK-!**_  
  
 The skin of the bandit’s legs began to peel apart like thin paper. _Rip rip rrrrip!_ The flesh shredded, revealing nerves and muscles coated around thick, gushing blood. _Slitch craaa **aack-!**_ Those muscles then tore up like fragile little strings, splashing out blood and flesh and clothes and bones like nauseating confetti. _Splish splash_ , trickles of blood pooled under his skeletal feet, forming a puddle that evaporated so easily into hazy, black gas.  
  
  _Sliiiiitch…_ Up and up and up that single line of fire slithered, leaving deep, hollow trails that tore open the skin, enabling a finger – hell, a whole person – to slip right through the bandit’s body like he was made of paper. _Rrrip slich skriiiiiiiiiit_ , the poor fool’s body tore apart, scraping the flesh of his hips into two, slicing the muscles of his waist into chunks, then cracked open his chest like beat-up ragdoll.  
  
 Though the victim’s mouth gaped as horrifyingly wide as any human could manage, no words, no sounds, not even a peep was heard through shredded mouth. While hell licked upon its feast, the bandit had his head cocked backwards, tugging his neck farther and farther away until the bones of his neck cracked into two.  
  
 The last thing the bandit saw was the sky above.  
  
 For in a single blink of an eye, once the fire had reached right across his face, it cracked the skull wide open, crushing it into white, dusty bits until eyeballs dripped down and splashed into the gunk of red and black.  
  
 As one disintegrated into pure soot, another and another had claimed its other victims.  
  
 Soon enough, the bright blue skies echoed nothing but high-pitched shrills.  
  
—  
  
 It felt like an eternity.  
  
 No matter how tightly they squeezed their eyes shut, none could ever stop themselves from flinching, crying even, once they felt something splotching their bodies. No matter how badly they cupped their ears, none could ever drown out the horrifying screech that would soon haunt their living.  
  
 It felt like an eternity; then it stopped.  
  
 At mental count of three – five, ten, twenty; gods Rodin didn’t know – she opened her eyes. And when she did – _Oh Gods_ – the grandmaster croaked out a single gasp at the bloody mess. There were no skeletons, no bodies. Only the enemies’ weapons lay about in a splash of crimson, and even those were coated in a smoky haze of black.  
  
 Her body still hovered in the air, and her mind put two and two together as to why Tharja did such a thing. Slowly she craned her neck toward Chrom. Like her, the great lord also gawked at the disastrous results, forcing out a few choked coughs that Gods know how long he had kept inside his lungs.  
  
 Sweat trickling down her face, Robin scanned the area. All the Shepherds were still in their exact condition: floating, gawking, stunned by sheer silence and pure fear by their own comrade’s actions.  
  
 “Olivia…”  
  
 She then heard his voice.  
  
 Trying her best to float in an upright position, Robin threw her gaze toward Henry. The dark mage was fine as day, thank the Gods, as he now kneeled to the ground with a bloodstained Olivia tight in his arms and close to his chest.  
  
 “-ake…up…” Under the heavy, eerie silence, his voice was all they could hear. “P-Pl-e…ase…w-wake…u…up…”  
  
**END**

**Author's Note:**

> honestly this was just an excuse to practice my descriptive writing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
